Leroy Laliberte is ready to hit the provincial government with some hard questions. The Athabasca NDP MLA is disappointed in the province for what he says is a lack of planning in terms of being better prepared for wildfire season in Saskatchewan, something that has continued to impact the north all summer long.
“A lot of people have been evacuated from the north in general, starting in the northeast a couple of months ago,” Laliberte said when speaking with Northern Pride. “It was scramble mode… As much as the various communities may have been prepared, the government didn’t have a plan. It was more like ‘let’s wing it’.” Laliberte believes, if there was a plan in place, things may have been much better established as far as relocating evacuees but still allowing them to remain close to home. “We had people going as far away as Moose Jaw, Saskatoon and even into Regina,” he said. “We have people in Cold Lake, Lloydminster, as far as Fort Saskatchewan and Vagreville. I want to thank these communities for that, as they have all been very accommodating to our people who have been evacuated. But, if there had been a proper plan in place – and this is something I have said from the very beginning – if the government would have supported the initiatives brought forward by community members, local representation – both municipal representation and First Nations leaders – things could have been different.”
In recent weeks, Laliberte also called on the government to seek federal assistance because of the wildfires. This, he said, is finally happening although he now feels it’s probably too little too late. “I understand the province has now finally called on the federal government, which is upsetting because we’ve been calling them out – with myself and Cumberland MLA Jordan McPhail – to seek federal help and it took this long,” he said. “This is unacceptable, especially when they see what the wildfire situation is like, and what it’s been like the past 10 years.” Although Laliberte now resides in Meadow Lake, he is originally from Beauval. “I grew up in the north, and I have never seen our communities have to be evacuated as much as they have been these past 10 years,” he noted. “The province should have had a plan in place right from the beginning… For example, back in the 1990s we had a thing called Initial Attack. People from our communities were trained to fight those fires. They were trained in the spring and it was a summer job in a lot of communities. As soon as a fire sparked up, we were out to the fire cache and you would have about 30 crews on that fire. We had people in the towers who were actually manning them. The funding was pulled from us to be able to fight those fires, and now we have people sitting on their hands who have 30-40 years of experience… The province is managing the fires, but not putting them out.”
The MLA also reiterated, if there was a plan, maybe there would be a facility closer to home to take in the evacuees. “If they would have asked for federal backing in the beginning, we also could have had the military to fly supplies and food to areas where road access had been cut off,” he stated. “They were also having power outages and all these other issues where the military could have been helpful. Calling them in now after we’ve lost 200,000 hectares to fire is upsetting. I have been calling out Premier (Scott) Moe and this government for the past three weeks to ask for federal help. We have all kinds of people who have been calling them out, and now they are bringing them in when we could have used them two months ago. That’s what is upsetting.”
Laliberte also noted the evacuation order in Beauval was expected to be pushed back to July 30. “I know it’s difficult,” he said. “People are homesick and they want to be at home. The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA) has been very accommodating. We have SPSA workers in the community, firefighters from all across the province who have been pitching in, as well as firefighters from Quebec, Australia, Mexico, all kinds of people who are helping to fight the fires, and I am grateful to all of them. But, again, this is a prime example of what happens when there is no plan in place. People are sent in on scramble mode, and that is what we are seeing today. I am definitely going to be advocating for having a plan. There will be some hard questions this government is going to have to answer when we get back for the fall sitting.”
As of this week’s news deadline, there were 60 active wildfires in Saskatchewan. Of those active fires, six were categorized as contained, 11 as not contained, 25 as ongoing assessments and 18 were listed as protecting values. Twelve communities were under an evacuation order including: the Resort Subdivision of Lac La Plonge, La Plonge Reserve, the Northern Village of Beauval, the Northern Hamlet of Jans Bay, the Resort Subdivision of Ramsey Bay, Patuanak/English River First Nation, Montreal Lake Cree Nation, the Northern Village of Pinehouse, Canoe Lake Cree First Nation/ Canoe Narrows, Ile-a-la Crosse, the Northern Hamlet of Cole Bay and the Resort Subdivision of Little Amyot Lake. As a reminder, there is a fire ban still in place due to the extreme fire risk. The fire ban encompasses the area north of the provincial forest boundary up to the Churchill River. The fire ban prohibits any open fires, controlled burns and fireworks in the designated boundary. This includes provincial parks, provincial recreation sites and the Northern Saskatchewan Administrative District within those boundaries. “I want to thank all the individuals who have been reaching out in support of the northern communities, and thank you to all the frontline workers,” Laliberte said. “All the communities have supported each other, that’s what we do in the north, and everyone is OK right now.”